Tour de France 2020 | Roglič goes to the yellow, Pogačar won the ninth stage

Tadej Pogačar could rejoice in the stage victory

Benoit Tessier, Reuters

Thirty-year-old Roglič, last year’s Vuelta winner, replaced Adam Yates at the head of the Tour. The Brit was not enough in the last climb, he finished in the group with a loss of 54 seconds and fell to eighth place in the standings. After the first of three weeks of the most famous stage race, last year’s champion Colombian Egan Bernal is in second place with a loss of 21 seconds.

Hirschi won third place today after driving 90 kilometers in an escape. He was caught only 1600 meters before the finish line, yet he did not fall away and in the end he fought for the laurel. However, Pogačar celebrated his first place and at the age of 21 he became the youngest stage winner on the Lance Armstrong Tour during his triumph in 1993 in the eighth stage.

Profile of the ninth stage of the Tour de France.

letour.fr

“It’s really crazy to win a stage after such a hard day. The guys on the team did a great job and I’m glad I made it. Primož has already won one stage (fourth) and will want to win another. We can definitely do great things together,” he said. Pogačar.

Roglič: It’s a big day for me

Roglič also appreciated the Slovenian double success. “Even though Tadej won today, it is a big day for me. Every cyclist dreams of being in the yellow. My goal is to bring him to Paris. But he still has many days ahead of us, Pogačar is stronger now than Bernal,” he said. new leader.

After a day off, the peloton with the Czechs Jan Hirt and Roman Kreuziger on Tuesday will have a flat stage along the Atlantic coast from the town of Ile d’Oléron to Ile de Ré in the length of 168.5 km. The wind can play a big role. Today, Hirt was 16 minutes behind the peloton and Kreuziger almost half an hour behind.

Even before the continuation of the Tour, all riders and members of the implementation teams will undergo tests for covid-19 disease on Monday for the first time since the start of the race. If two people appear in one team with a positive finding, the whole stable will be excluded from the Tour.

“The results (covid tests) should be by the evening. Now we are moving about 450 kilometers north to the sea. Tomorrow we will walk a little, on Tuesday and Wednesday there could be a lot of windy stages,” Kreuziger assumes. “The first block was a lot of hills, a lot of intense racing. It’s one of the hardest Grand Tour I’m going,” added the experienced cyclist in a media recording.